Compiled List of Feedback

[Halaster]

Since I started the thread, I have gone through the feedback thread and compiled it into topics and handed it over to the active staff team.  Not all ideas made the list, but everything everyone posted was read and considered.

To name a couple of ideas (but not all) that did not make the list:

- staff term limits - until this most recent staffing round, it's been a challenge sometimes to retain enough staff to fill in all the roles we'd like to see filled.  Plus, losing some of that expertise and knowledge due to forced term limits would cause a lot of issues.  However, it did spur the idea of having a routine check-in with staff and a senior staffer.  Maybe every 3 months, or 6 months, but a lot like a workplace one-on-one between a manager and a team member.  A time to talk about how things are going, how they're doing, how they're liking staffing, and provide feedback.  I'm not saying this definitely will happen, but it's an alternative idea presented

- displaying accounts names for everyone - while the idea behind it is understandable there are too many reasons not to do this.  If you find out some character is this one particular person who annoys you from the GDB/Discord you're going to possibly play differently around them.  If you find out some character is staff, you're going to possibly play differently around them.  If someone is a female player, which is often obvious by the name, they're going to possibly be treated differently by other players.  It even gives rise to making online stalking easier for the stalker.


With that in mind here is the compiled list I have presented to the active staff to discuss:

----------------------------

Communication / Moderation
    more professional/polite tone
    create stylesheet/guide for talking with players
    all official comms via request - done, new staff contract
    post all staff rules - in progress by Brokkr
    post ban/complaint lists
    players should be able to say no to having to deal with certain staff
    take a more corrective approach, talk to players earlier about behavior
    use MOTD more, not everyone reads Discord/GDB
    player moderation - done, new player mod team
    ban amnesty, start over

FOIC
    Rule against and punish USE of of ooc information in-game, not the relaying of it
    more ways to find out info like "how good a weapon is" - mechanical things a vet knows
    Raise the glass ceiling more

Staff Avatars
    no leaders
    staff cannot engage in ERP
    more scrutiny on pkilling - review and question the staffer for each one
    no dual-logging (staff and avatar)

Staff Rules
    Ban staff's player account for 2 years if they have serious breach of rules
    stricter enforcement of existing rules - review them regularly, workshops, discussions

Staff HR
    Staff Review every 3 months -checkin to make sure they're still happy with it, senior staff provide feedback (manager 1-1)
    overhaul hiring process - focus more on people skills
    "sabbatical rule". Allow staff to take a break while saving their spot as much as we can
    more willingness and avenues to discipline staff
    staff training - admin train ST, Prod train admin - to identify potential future promotions

Discipline / Complaints
    limit who sees complaints - code change in progress
    players can remove/clarify account notes after 2 years
    give players time/place to vent over past frustrations
    all private messages should be assumed public - meaning someone can use them without getting in trouble
    Player Committee
          discuss sexual harassment allegations
          discuss player/staff disagreement
          discuss/present ideas
          discuss staff complaints, player complaints
          appeal staff decisions
    Whistleblower rule that absolves someone of breaking other rules if it exposes a serious problem
    Have game auto email someone when an account note is added

Game / Code
    Loosen up resurrection rules when someone dies to a stupid reason that no one knows about
    Automate Karma - remove if players are bad
    consent flags
    lighten up a little on xenophobia, as it causes isolation
    add ability for players to resolve their own requests so they don't have to wait on staff

Community
    engage with other RPI MUD's
    presence on Reddit
    rebrand - maybe remove MCB
    vision statement, core values

[Halaster]

And to be clear, this is not a list of all things that are changing.  This is a list given to staff to discuss.

[tiny rainbow]

One thing probably worth mentioning is some of those things have more player support than others and it probably shouldn't be an equal list of "demands from the players" because a lot of us would prefer some of the things on that list were not added

[Tuannon]

"rebrand - maybe remove MCB"

MCB isn't the problem, MCB is a crutch used for stupidity 'that's what my character would do, man'. Not the problem itself.

"Whistleblower rule that absolves someone of breaking other rules if it exposes a serious problem"

Depends on what rules are being broken, in my opinion.

"staff cannot engage in ERP"

Not sure why this is relevant, ERP related manipulation should not be occurring at all unless it is for IC reasons (to get aide B to be a willing patsy in Plot Z).

Now we have hopefully cleared up a bit of the issues with staff, maybe turn the magnifying glass on players. It's all well and good to have staff's bad actors gone or censured, but you still have the usual suspects in the player population taking advantage of all this chaos.

The idea of rotating staff out when they are fatigued will probably do away with the 8 week turnarounds on simple or update requests, I think it's a good idea for the 'middle manager' staff to be more involved here.

I probably have more, but I reserve the right to forget to update this post.

[Pariah]

On the ERP thing, I think that the rape policy should be re-worded.  As it sits it's fine to coerce someone via sexual means.
https://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Rape

Note that Wikipedia includes 'coercion' and 'abuse of power' as two ways that rape can be carried out. We are excluding these from our definition, as we feel they are part of the game world. Also, the rule of consent still applies as to how and if the sexual scene would be carried out.

I would recommend taking that out, as that's just ASKING for problems.

[Seeker]

This may be folded into some of the the other points in your outline, but overall it really seems that needing a system to insure accountability might be missing.

Whether it is in the staff duties (one appointed Admin must be responsible for monitoring run-logs involving all ST, one assigned Producer must be assigned to regularly monitor run-logs involving Admins.) or in some other system, we keep getting into the worst trouble with how staff fails to police their own behavior.

[whengravityfails]

On the ERP thing, I think that the rape policy should be re-worded.  As it sits it's fine to coerce someone via sexual means.
https://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Rape

Note that Wikipedia includes 'coercion' and 'abuse of power' as two ways that rape can be carried out. We are excluding these from our definition, as we feel they are part of the game world. Also, the rule of consent still applies as to how and if the sexual scene would be carried out.

I would recommend taking that out, as that's just ASKING for problems.

Yeah, I second this. Not including coercion and abuse of power is pretty antiquated these days.

[SpyGuy]

While this may fall under what a player/staff committee might do, can we please review what happened to Delirium a year ago?  I don’t know the details of the complaints she lodged at the time, the responses by staff or the reasons why.  I do know that whatever happened in that process was an abject failure that lost the game at least two great players.

What I’m asking for is a review by all staff, or a committee, to review it and try to learn from what went wrong there.  Were the player’s complaints taken seriously? At what point did staff/player communication break down? When were the times either side lost their cool?  What action was taken or solutions offered on staff side to de-escalate the situation?  This isn’t meant to be a witch hunt or tear open old wounds.  It’s so that staff can identify the mistakes that were made.

I also don’t encourage asking past players to come back.  I’m aware Delirium and Ender aren’t banned.  That’s even worse, they felt so badly treated they left a game they’d played for years. Armageddon can be emotionally intense and some folks got burned bad. I would encourage publicly posting a recap of what went wrong and takeaways.   

Players have one vote, with our feet.  I’ve exercised that option before when staff communication broke down, mostly with Shalooonsh.  I’m choosing to come back now because I hope the game can grow and change.  It won’t be able to do that in the future if people are driven to quit.

[Jimpka_Moss]

This is good effort. This is a sign of good things. This is clear evidence to me that this is all being taken seriously behind the screen. I very much appreciate this. I'm now eagerly looking forward to more blue text in this thread. Thank you. Thank you all, again I appreciate this.

[Usiku]

I would like to add that this list is not the exhaustive list of all discussions that are happening right now. Staff have been discussing all feedback as it has been coming in and those discussions have resulted in what I suppose you could call a shortlist here. Nothing was arbitrarily or off-handedly dismissed and Halaster didn't go through all the feedback in a silo and make these decisions by himself. Now the list has been compiled, there will be further, more in-depth discussions around each.

In addition to that we also have a similar exercise happening on the staff side, where all staff have been invited to contribute their feedback ideas about what could be improved for staff, for the game, for players and for the community. There is a fair amount of overlap of ideas between what players posted and what staff posted (unsurprisingly). But being on staff and having that experience fresh and front of mind perhaps allows for a slightly different perspective. These have yet to be compiled but some small examples of the other things we are also bandying about (included but certainly not limited to):

- Being able to quickly and easily see who other staff members are monitoring
- A return to the rule of new staff having to store their current PC to come on to staff (this rule was initially softened because it was increasingly hard to fill staff positions when people didn't want to store)
- Changes to which staff can see which requests, notably complaints
- New staff must inform us of any prior (or current) familial or romantic relationship with a player
- Where are all the areas where we can be more transparent in order to benefit the game and the community?
- An overhaul and expansion of the consent & rape policy and rules.

We really have a magnifying glass up to every nook and cranny of how we operate as a staffing team, how we run the game and how we interact with players. This is not a quick process nor a comfortable one but it's happening.

[DesertT]

- Being able to quickly and easily see who other staff members are monitoring
- A return to the rule of new staff having to store their current PC to come on to staff (this rule was initially softened because it was increasingly hard to fill staff positions when people didn't want to store)
- Changes to which staff can see which requests, notably complaints
- New staff must inform us of any prior (or current) familial or romantic relationship with a player
- Where are all the areas where we can be more transparent in order to benefit the game and the community?
- An overhaul and expansion of the consent & rape policy and rules.

We really have a magnifying glass up to every nook and cranny of how we operate as a staffing team, how we run the game and how we interact with players. This is not a quick process nor a comfortable one but it's happening.

While I appreciate the non-bolded parts of the above post, can we leave the bolded parts out?

Re-instating a hard rule about storing when there was a MOSTLY UNKNOWN softening seems rather unfair, especially to those who didn't drop a staff application BECAUSE they didn't want to store.  If anything, this rule should only apply if the said player (staff member selectee) is playing a sponsored role, a leadership role, a mul, a magicker, sorc, or psion.  I should've just said so long as they're a mundane, karma 1, or half-giant.

And I disagree with the second part because honestly, that's nobody's business unless it starts really interfering with the game on an OOC level.  Considering we've had (to my knowledge) VERY FEW of these (the most recent one being the most obvious), I'd still vote to keep this out.  Relatively speaking over nearly 30 years of existence, I think the rarity is acceptable.

What I'd like to see is some kind of commitment from Staff for a balance between positive animations versus negative animations.  There are ways to make corrective animations and not have it be overly negative and repetitive.

Otherwise, everything else looks good and honestly, it -really- seems like Staff is listening with the implementation of some of these small but meaningful changes.  I just don't understand why it took so long to implement them.  Like the 18+ deal and a player-moderator team.

So again, overall MASSIVE KUDOS to Staff for their present meaningful efforts!!

[Usiku]

While this may fall under what a player/staff committee might do, can we please review what happened to Delirium a year ago?  I don’t know the details of the complaints she lodged at the time, the responses by staff or the reasons why.  I do know that whatever happened in that process was an abject failure that lost the game at least two great players.

What I’m asking for is a review by all staff, or a committee, to review it and try to learn from what went wrong there.  Were the player’s complaints taken seriously? At what point did staff/player communication break down? When were the times either side lost their cool?  What action was taken or solutions offered on staff side to de-escalate the situation?  This isn’t meant to be a witch hunt or tear open old wounds.  It’s so that staff can identify the mistakes that were made.

I also don’t encourage asking past players to come back.  I’m aware Delirium and Ender aren’t banned.  That’s even worse, they felt so badly treated they left a game they’d played for years. Armageddon can be emotionally intense and some folks got burned bad. I would encourage publicly posting a recap of what went wrong and takeaways.   

Players have one vote, with our feet.  I’ve exercised that option before when staff communication broke down, mostly with Shalooonsh.  I’m choosing to come back now because I hope the game can grow and change.  It won’t be able to do that in the future if people are driven to quit.

First, I will say that this is absolutely not indicating that this is the case with this particular scenario, I have not looked at it personally, have a great respect for the players involved and I don't know what happened.

However, what I would like ask is this: How comfortable and supportive would you be of such an expose of a situation if what was revealed was that ultimately it was not entirely the fault of staff and that the players had had at least some responsibility for what happened and that their behaviour was potentially embarrassing and/or personal? And we revealed that in order to defend our actions?

I can definitely think of at least a couple of situations over the past couple of years where staff has taken a beating for the way we acted, we could have likely absolved the staff members involved but we would have had to throw a player under the bus/publicly embarrass them/reveal personal information. In my mind this would be wrong and unprofessional and an awful thing to do to a player even if they have made staffing difficult for us. It's not something we do for these reasons really. That's not to say that we can't look at the situation and learn from it without posting an expose.

[Seeker]

Thank you, Usiku.  I am heartened that staff continue to try to be more inclusive with this difficult process.  A major kudos again to all those bravely engaged in this process.

We know its a pet peeve of mine, so I can't just let the below go uncommented upon.

- A return to the rule of new staff having to store their current PC to come on to staff (this rule was initially softened because it was increasingly hard to fill staff positions when people didn't want to store)

This is a major recurring problem:  changing the rules behind the curtain and deciding that such changes do not need to be broadcast to the players.  This exact topic came up on Discourse in the last month. 

The staff member defending an accusation of a player who was allowed to retain their current PC AND become a new staffer did not explain a "soft change" in the rules.  Instead, they said that the accusers "did not the know the entire situation" and that they were wrong in their statements.  Obviously the staffer claimed they couldn't explain all the details.  The staffer appeared angry and defensive about the accusation.

You can see how this a problem?  This just happened.  Previously (before #ModTeamWinsAgain), if the accuser had continued with their accusation, they likely would have been banned from Discord.  If they revealed PROOF that staffer's claims were smoke, deception and mirrors, they might have been banned from the game for revealing IG information about recent or current PCs.

This is an awful look when the theoretically now-banned and ostracized ex-player shares all of the above on some other platform.  Yes, that accuser might finally have used some foul, angry language in the Request Tool.  Yes, that accuser might later bundle up all their previous other beefs about the game and staff into a diatribe and embellish a few points.  But if people later dig into it, and some are over-eager to do so:  the accuser was fundamentally right.  Staff gaslit and excised a player from the game because it seems the staff got caught cheating again.

I get the different viewpoints.  And I know I am hyper-sensitive to this particular type of injustice.  But come on.  I did not even know about this claim, but I watched the Discord discussion and now I am pissed all over again.

[Usiku]

I can't speak to that because I actually know nothing about the situation. I'm not sure that before the overhaul that is happening now, that the staff rules were necessarily something that was 'supposed' to be shared and all staff agree to not share staff-related information as part of the staffing contract. So that staffer may have found themselves between a hard place and a rock. What wasn't in place was the level of transparency that meant these rule changes were shared I guess? I didn't actually know that. A quick Discord search and I can see multiple open and cordial conversations between players and staff about this particular rule and how it works and seemingly lots of players being aware of it, so I don't think it was kept behind the curtains at all?

Regardless, I don't think this thread is quite the right place to go down that rabbit hole as it would be detrimental to the discussion at hand. I really don't want to derail the discussion around the feedback after everyone's hard work. I would be happy to discuss further via the request tool if you think it warrants a further look but I can't really comment without knowing anything about what happened.

[Ender]

I don't particularly want to go to far into the reasons why I quit, and I agree with Usiuku that I don't think there is much value or use in dredging all that back up. 

Simply put my wife and I put in a complaint about treatment and I outlined a number of changes I felt were necessary for me to be comfortable with continuing to play.  These suggestioons were not addressed let alone entertained, and in response both my character and my wife's character were stored without asking us if we wanted them to be.  It was the sort of heavy handed response that felt like the door hitting us on the way out, and I lacked the energy or desire to put more effort into trying further.  It's a bitter taste to know these suggestions might finally be happening after being ignored, but I'm happy for those who are remaining if they will benefit from them, and don't really have a desire to retread all that again personally

Rather I'd like to address at least one reason why I've stayed away from the game and will remain to do so.

I keep being told I was respected, but then I hear what happened with the project I was working on, and that a former character of mine is being played by a staffer in a current plotline.  I have to hear about these things through back channels, because staff made no attempt to ask me if I was ok with it.  So in my mind staff's moved on from considering me, and so should I.  Did staff NEED to reach out to me for my persmission, blessing, or to ask for advice on how to run my PCs?  No.  They have explicitly stated that all our characters belong to them.

As stated here:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,58291.msg1081261.html#msg1081261

If a PC is stored and transits to a VNPC, their story from the point of storage forward belongs to the Storytellers, Administrators, and Producers of Armageddon."

 

This is not how you show respect to players and the efforts they put into the game.  To tell them that their stories aren't their own is basically devaluing the time and energy they spend on those characters.  When I saw this post that was made after I was stored, I knew I might the right decision.  Is staff fully within their right to enact a policy like this?  Sure.  Is it as bad as the harassment and refusal to stop the harassment that drove my wife and I to quit in the first place?  Hardly.  But it is simply yet another deal breaker for me after so many other deal breakers.

So please consider adding this to your list:

ArmageddonMUD staff recognize the game as a collaborative experience between the staff and players.  Players put a lot of effort and time into their characters, and they sometimes reach and end that is not death.  Staff will respect any player's wishes to not have their characters animated by staffers or used in plots after their character has ended.

[SpyGuy]

@Usiku: Fair enough.  I do hope staff seriously look at that case and others like it.  I believe there may be valuable lessons to learn from it all. At the very least you’ll find one example of how staff resolving a complaint led to a veteran player quitting, something we will hopefully avoid in the future.

[Dresan]

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And this game is notorious for swinging hard from one direction to another, creating problems while trying to solve issues.

The root cause of all this mess was the toxic OOC relationship between a staff member and certain players, and the benefits and disadvantages it has brought everyone involved over long periods of time. Any changes should focus on preventing that from happening or ever getting that bad again. 

I strongly feel we are not entitled to our in-game characters, no matter how amazing the character has been built up to be over time. If someone doesn't like something from their characters life, they should store and start again somewhere else.

Some of the new consent rules feel a tad vague and feel potentially become problematic for staff and players in situations that are not going in another player's favor. That said I am not asking you to change anything, instead, I would just like to ask for staff to please keep in mind what the root cause of all this was in the first place and to make any changes to this text-based game played anonymously over the internet in moderation.

[Veselka]

Point Blank: Is Malifaxis/Blaze still allowed to play the game and be a member of the community? There are several players who will not consider rejoining the community while he is still an anonymous question mark.

This is a rather easy ball to hit, Staff.

[mansa]

Point Blank: Is Player X still allowed to play the game and be a member of the community? There are several players who will not consider rejoining the community while they is still an anonymous question mark.

This is a rather easy ball to hit, Staff.

Hey Veselka,

Part of the Community Rules is to not discuss the bans of other players.  (https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,59147.0.html)
The community rules are something that the staff and moderators, as well as the players, have agreed to. 

Of course, if I read the room, this is an important subject that some players have stated their continued participation in the ArmageddonMUD community hinges on this information.


I'm not going to moderate and remove your post, but I'd just like to remind everyone that it is against the community rules to discuss other players bans in a general, public forum.

[BadSkeelz]

Why are we still trying to Tuluki this shit? It's unfortunate that the suggestion of making bans public wasn't taken up. That way players could make better informed decisions on how Staff are handling themselves.

[mansa]

Why are we still trying to Tuluki this shit? It's unfortunate that the suggestion of making bans public wasn't taken up. That way players could make better informed decisions on how Staff are handling themselves.

If you want to talk about the community moderation rules please use this thread here:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,59141.0.html

[Malken]

Point Blank: Is Player X still allowed to play the game and be a member of the community? There are several players who will not consider rejoining the community while they is still an anonymous question mark.

This is a rather easy ball to hit, Staff.

Hey Veselka,

Part of the Community Rules is to not discuss the bans of other players.  (https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,59147.0.html)
The community rules are something that the staff and moderators, as well as the players, have agreed to. 

Of course, if I read the room, this is an important subject that some players have stated their continued participation in the ArmageddonMUD community hinges on this information.


I'm not going to moderate and remove your post, but I'd just like to remind everyone that it is against the community rules to discuss other players bans in a general, public forum.

The entirety of the playerbase want that person permanently banned, tho. Like... Every single players on this mud. I think it's worth discussing if that wish has been granted or not by those who have the power to ban players. This isn't at all like someone asking why Malken was banned from Discord, this is something major that would bring back like 25%+ of our players if answered.

If we can't discuss that in a general, public forum, then where else can we ask that question?

[whengravityfails]

Point Blank: Is Player X still allowed to play the game and be a member of the community? There are several players who will not consider rejoining the community while they is still an anonymous question mark.

This is a rather easy ball to hit, Staff.

Hey Veselka,

Part of the Community Rules is to not discuss the bans of other players.  (https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,59147.0.html)
The community rules are something that the staff and moderators, as well as the players, have agreed to. 

Of course, if I read the room, this is an important subject that some players have stated their continued participation in the ArmageddonMUD community hinges on this information.


I'm not going to moderate and remove your post, but I'd just like to remind everyone that it is against the community rules to discuss other players bans in a general, public forum.

The entirety of the playerbase want that person permanently banned, tho. Like... Every single players on this mud. I think it's worth discussing if that wish has been granted or not by those who have the power to ban players. This isn't at all like someone asking why Malken was banned from Discord, this is something major that would bring back like 25%+ of our players if answered.

If we can't discuss that in a general, public forum, then where else can we ask that question?

Yeah...while a lot of us vary widely on what we hoped to see happen (or not), I'm pretty sure the vast majority want to know what happened and will happen with this person - not only for what they did but out of concern going forward. I don't and never did care about the rest of the changes, but this is a big one.

[Patuk]

Why are we still trying to Tuluki this shit? It's unfortunate that the suggestion of making bans public wasn't taken up. That way players could make better informed decisions on how Staff are handling themselves.

If you want to talk about the community moderation rules please use this thread here:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,59141.0.html

Fair enough, and done.

[SpyGuy]

It’s probably the playerbase’s single most common convern.  I just don’t want to play with that guy and have seen him slither out of consequences for being a bad actor so many times before.  I also don’t want to be around the next time shit hits the fan if he’s allowed to keep playing.  As for being on topic, this was my feedback in that thread just in other words.